A person flies into space, climbs steep peaks, successfully copes with the sands in the desert, turning them into fertile lands, but still cannot get to some parts of the Earth. Where are the virgin forests and impenetrable jungles on the planet preserved? Where has the researcher's foot not yet set?
Bwindi National Park, Uganda
On the border of Uganda and Congo, there is an impenetrable jungle - the Bwindi forest. Some of them are located on the territory of Uganda with an area of 331 sq. km has been turned into a nature reserve, which is protected by UNESCO. The cost of visiting the reserve for one person will cost $ 750.
You can move around the national park only along special paths so as not to disturb the local ecosystem and not to scare the main local "stars", for the sake of which thousands of tourists come here every year - rare mountain gorillas. Their population on the planet is only about 900 individuals.
All tourists are accompanied by guides. It is not recommended to leave the beaten path here, because everything that is outside the tourist routes is terra incognita. Lost tourists, of course, will be looked for, but they are unlikely to be able to survive in the African jungle.
Previously, local tribes lived on the territory of the reserve, but they were driven out of their native villages and are now not allowed into the forest.
There are rainy periods in Bwindi Park twice a year - in spring (March-April) and in autumn (September-November). Then even tourist paths turn into impassable swampy channels. However, this does not stop some tourists.
Black Bamboo Hollow, China
Heizhu, which can be translated from Chinese as "Black Bamboo Hollow", is an amazing area located in the Sichuan province. This is a gorge near Mount Mae'an, overgrown with bamboo, the path to which lies through the Kamennye Vorota pass.
Near the hollow, you can see many shepherds - residents of nearby villages, but looking for guides among them for walking around Heizhu is a useless task: none of them, even for a lot of money, will agree to set foot on the territory of a terrible impenetrable forest.
The bamboo forest is surrounded by a nature reserve founded in 2000. There are several tourist routes around it, which can only be traversed in the company of a guide. You can see the most beautiful lakes, picturesque waterfalls, magnificent rhododendron fields. However, all tourists in delight freeze in front of a bamboo wall - the Heizhu forest. No guide will take tourists there.
There are a lot of oddities and mysteries in the Heizhu forest:
- on an area of 200 sq. km a thin, tall, dark bamboo grows, through which the sun's rays do not penetrate and no landmarks are visible, that is, moving a couple of meters away from the path, you can consider yourself lost in a huge impenetrable forest, where no one will ever find you;
- fogs and heavy rain are frequent in the bamboo forest, which only adds gloom to this place;
- animals try to avoid bamboo thickets, so the hollow seems silent and ominous;
- the compass in this forest does not work, as there are deposits of iron ores with strong magnetic properties;
- besides trees, there are also areas of quicksand in the ravine;
- also here a poisonous gas comes to the surface, and some researchers believe that trees are responsible for its appearance;
- history knows many cases when people went to the bamboo and forest and never returned.
Jungle of the Amazon
Rainforests cover the shores of the Amazon and its tributaries. This is a real rain jungle with swamps, large trees entwined with vines, huge bright flowers, spider webs the size of a typical window and many crawling, flying, jumping reptiles. At the same time, we did not count more serious predators such as jaguars and caimans. And all these creatures are not averse to attacking a defenseless tourist who dared to poke his nose into the forest without an accompanying person and without a machete.
The jungle of the Amazon can be found in 9 countries. In some states, for example, in Brazil and Peru, tourists are offered excursions to the virgin forest. Naturally, travelers, for completeness of impressions, have enough and a short walk through the jungle, where everything moves, flies, sighs, so that they will never again meddle in the thicket on their own.
A trip to the Amazon tribes will be an interesting experience. However, many of them are considered non-contact, and therefore do not accept tourists. It is said that the jungle of Brazil is home to "the loneliest man in the world." His entire tribe has died, and now he alone copes with daily life in the forest and does not allow volunteers to come near him.
The Amazonian forests are considered to be completely unexplored, not obeyed by courageous adventurers, but many researchers are convinced of the opposite. They believe that even the most remote corners of the pristine Amazon forest have already been visited by people. So, just a few years ago, a group of scientists discovered in the jungles of Peru an ancient settlement of the Chachapoya Indians, enemies of the Incas. The ruins of 36 dwellings, which were left 5 centuries ago, were located on a mountain overgrown with impenetrable forest. This proves that the indigenous people of America knew the jungle perfectly, were not afraid of it, but, on the contrary, considered it their home.
Garden of Eden, Indonesia
New Guinea is a Pacific island divided between two countries - Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The island, comparable in area to Turkey, is occupied by mountains, whose slopes are covered with jungle. Tropical forests make way only for a person who frees up sites for vegetable gardens and plantations.
However, there are also completely unexplored areas in New Guinea. Just 15 years ago, a group of scientists stumbled into the depths of a forest in the Foggia mountain range in Indonesia on an area that they called the "Garden of Eden." The area of 300 hectares was not noticed and was not developed by people. Animals and birds here were not afraid of people and willingly allowed themselves to be stroked.
Explorers of the Garden of Eden have returned to the big world with significant prey. Here, birds of paradise were still alive, which were considered to have disappeared from the face of the Earth a long time ago. We also managed to record 20 new species of amphibians and discover butterflies hitherto unknown to science. Botanists also celebrated the victory, as they were able to find several new species of palm trees.
The jungle is considered their home by numerous Aboriginal people of Papua New Guinea. Tribes of former cannibals still live here, who used to eat their enemies, thus taking away their strength and valor. The descendants of cannibals are now quite civilized and do not consume human flesh, although the older generation still recalls the sweet taste of human meat with nostalgia.
